
The president really has no power over elections – but that hasn’t stopped Trump from laying the groundwork to challenge results in November
When Donald Trump commandeered primetime US television last Friday, he delivered a familiar, but still extraordinary, message. The president argued once again that the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, were illegitimate.
US elections are “vulnerable to being rigged and stolen”, Trump alleged, claiming that “the trust of the American people was lost” when he was defeated.
Continue reading...You’ll leave fed, challenged and gastronomically punch-drunk
Nico Simeone is the Scottish-Italian chef behind the Six by Nico restaurant empire, and Lennox, in Spring Gardens, Manchester, is his new baby. If you are unfamiliar with Six by Nico, it’s a fever-dream version of fine dining: Simeone conjured up themes such as “The Chippie”, “Italian Road Trip” and “Ancient Rome”, then served six courses in homage to them. Tokyo! Mad Hatters! Childhood! At one point, the Six empire was growing like knotweed, and by 2025 there were 17 restaurants. You had more chance of eating at a Six by Nico than finding an NHS dentist.
Suffice to say, many adore the concept – overlooking its middling cooking skills – because it’s pocket-friendly, and the six-course format gives a night out with friends a sense of occasion not available at Pizza Express. Lennox, Simeone says, will be very different: à la carte, focused on dry-aged meat, but with the same playfulness and invention. There would be a fish finger with katsu curry and celeriac remoulade; a tempura oyster shell filled with dry-aged beef tartare and oyster emulsion; and gnocchi with deboned chicken wings and parmesan. Lennox would be personal, bespoke and absolutely unscalable. No rollout planned, no siree. But by August 2026, there will be three of them. Hang on, what? Yes, shortly after Manchester came Glasgow, and then Edinburgh. Simeone sleeps with one eye open; I salute his indefatigability.
Continue reading...From award-winning Julies to golfers who were nearly the best, test your knowledge with this bumper summer quiz
1 What is now the world’s most populous city, according to the UN?
2 Which two Julies won best actress Oscars in consecutive years?
3 What was thrown by the goddess Eris at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis?
4 Richard Nixon appeared a record 55 times on the cover of what?
5 What became Britain’s tallest structure in 1894?
6 Mojang Studios in Sweden is renowned for developing which video game?
7 Which golfer spent 270 weeks as world No 2, but never reached No 1?
8 Which “The” group, named after a Camus novel, went through over 65 members?
9 Who is the subject of Alberto Korda’s photograph Guerrillero Heroico?
10 What defines an Olimpico goal in football?
11 Who initiated the Fridays for Future school strikes?
12 Which British dynasty is commemorated by a monument in St Peter’s Basilica?
13 What type of souvenir was invented in Vienna in 1900?
14 Which Norwegian island gives its name to two shipping forecast areas?
15 Which art museum employs a colony of cats to protect it from rodents?
16 Millvina Dean, who died in 2009, was the last living survivor of what?
What links:
17 Arrival of spring; double portraits; swimming pools; Grand Canyon; Yorkshire landscape?
18 Mozart & Franz Süssmayr; Landseer & Millais; F Scott Fitzgerald & Edmund Wilson?
19 Cordelia, Goneril & Regan; Imogen; Marina?
20 Britannia (1717-1936); Golden Hind (1937-69); St Edward’s Crown (1971-84)?
21 Alba white truffles; Pule cheese; Wagyu beef; Yubari King melons?
22 Matt Damon; Robert Frost; Bill Gates; Bonnie Raitt; Mark Zuckerberg?
23 Horrible Histories; glucose; Gordon Brown’s neighbour; King-Smith’s swine; winter squash?
24 Mount Whitney in California and Mulhacén in Andalucía?
25 1991 defence of Baghdad; nacre; UK parliament; Virginia?
26 Carrying a double bass; missing a bus; walking two dogs; wearing a cowboy hat; winding a clock?
27 2 (1st); 29 (10th); 541 (100th); 7,919 (1,000th); 104,729 (10,000th)?
28 Ant; bull; cuckoo; eagle; shower of gold; swan?
29 Zlín, Czechoslovakia; Cohutta, US; Novo Mesto, Yugoslavia?
30 Drowned; large bread; pick me up; half cold?
Women aren’t being burnt at the stake any more, but there is still risk and violence implicit in the label ‘witch’
When Katherine Harrison’s husband passed away, she became the wealthiest woman in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Rather than wallow in her new status as a young widow she decided to run the farm she’d inherited on her own. She took up ranching and a slew of other hobbies including brewing ale, spinning yarn and beekeeping. She traded honey and beeswax for candles. She was by all accounts, headstrong, outspoken and clever.
In many corners of the internet, Harrison’s interests are having a moment. Craft brewers have been spruiking classic ales for years, urban beekeeping is surging in popularity, and people are looking to textile-based crafts as ways to practise mindfulness.
Continue reading...This show tries to grapple with the fact that three people associated with the reality juggernaut have killed themselves. But it forgets that the dating series doesn’t exist in a vacuum
In summer 2015, ITV revived its 00s reality format Celebrity Love Island, a show that was remembered mostly as a drunken, downmarket rival to Big Brother. Its new, slick, civilian Love Island was a slow-burn at first, but by 2017 it was one of British TV’s biggest hits. While it remains among ITV’s hottest properties, viewing figures are now more modest, with 600,000 people tuning in for its 2026 launch. Tastes have changed, but the fact that three people associated with the show – former contestants Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon, and Caroline Flack, the presenter for five series – took their lives, may also have made viewers wary.
Timed to coincide with the finale of the latest series of Love Island on Monday, Prime Video has released this two-parter about the apparent “curse” that stalks the programme. It opens with former contestant Anton Danyluk, who appeared on the show in 2019, declaring that there is “no higher high than the summer you’re preparing for Love Island”. But a stint in the show’s Mallorcan villa proved less of a high for some. Luis Morrison – a 2015 Islander – says it feels “disgusting” and “embarrassing” to watch the show back. “Everyone was having sex and stuff,” he says. Malin Andersson, a 2016 contestant, says, looking back, the show feels “quite toxic … so superficial and artificial”. Watching footage of herself coming into the villa for a post-elimination row with her partner, Terry, Andersson alleges there was much meddling on the part of the programme-makers: “The producers are fucking with people who can feel deep things!”
Continue reading...In an exclusive extract from his memoir, Kiyoshi Tanimoto describes the terrifying trip across the city to locate his wife and child
• ‘I didn’t want to be a victim of the bomb’: read an interview with Tanimoto’s daughter Koko Kondo
Most of the people of Hiroshima had neither seen nor heard any plane. They heard no sound of explosion. They had seen only a strange flash in open daylight, or merely felt the reflection of the flash. However, there had been a tremendous explosion.
The parents of Mr Konda, one of our church members, had been waiting for a train at Yokogawa station, located 2km [one and a quarter miles] away from the centre of the bomb’s explosion. They saw a B-29 and a parachute dropping through the air. Before they had time to wonder at the sight, they fell unconscious. Afterward, they could not remember sensing any sound or light. When they regained consciousness, they found themselves lying on the ground, burned and without any clothing. The houses all around had been crushed to the ground. After getting to their feet, they ran toward the suburbs. Other people rushing along the Koi highway had the same experience.
Continue reading...Fires displace people on massive scale and trigger one of the largest peacetime civilian evacuation operations ever carried out in France
As my colleagues note in this story, scientists say climate breakdown is triggering more frequent and more extreme weather events, evaporating soils and waterways, fuelling wildfires and leading to thousands of excess deaths. Europe is heating at about twice the global average rate.
Spain’s environment ministry has said that 32 major forest fires have been recorded so far this year, compared with seven over the same period in 2025.
Continue reading...Authorities ask for help finding 21-year-old, identified only as Abdul B, after van ramming in German capital
German authorities have issued a wanted notice for a fugitive suspect in the van ramming near Berlin’s Pride festival that left one person dead and injured at least 16 others.
Police and prosecutors asked for help in finding the 21-year-old, whom they identified as Abdul B. They said he was believed to have injured several people with a moving vehicle on Saturday night, and that one or more people apparently then left that vehicle. Several people were also apparently stabbed, they added.
Continue reading...Campaigners call for injunction against Raise the Colours, which is accused of spreading anti-immigration rhetoric
Birmingham residents have accused the local council and police of “dragging their heels” and giving “free rein” to a group responsible for erecting flags across the city.
Raise the Colours, which describes itself as a grassroots movement, has been placing union jack and St George’s cross flags on lamp-posts, roundabouts and other public infrastructure since last summer.
Continue reading...Spycops inquiry has revealed how Helen Steel was secretly monitored in her search for undercover officer who deceived her into relationship
At 2pm on 14 December 2002, Helen Steel, a well-known leftwing campaigner, and her parents landed at Auckland airport for a family holiday. It had been a tiring journey, so they were irritated when they were delayed leaving the airport for an hour.
What they did not know until recently is the reason for that delay. Their arrival had triggered a secret warning on Steel that had been put in place by police three weeks earlier. It prompted customs to carry out a discreet search of her luggage.
Continue reading...